Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Dems escalate slander -- is it inevitable?

The other day I sent an e-mail to Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics asking him for his opinion on several questions. My query was prompted by the incredibly dishonest piece put out by RFK, Jr. claiming that the 2004 election was stolen in Ohio. I was curious if he thought that the piece was vetted by members of the Democratic leadership establishment. After all, we can be fairly certain that he didn't write it himself. And as a Kennedy, we would imagine that he and his writers would have bounced it off the family's political advisors at the least.

I then asked Bevan if he thought this paper by RFK, Jr. represented a significant escalation of the slander that serves as the principal political tactic of the Democratic Party. It is one thing for party leaders to say all manner of nasty, vicious slanders while speaking at a rally, but quite another to do so in a carefully crafted, edited paper replete with extensive footnotes. Off the cuff remarks can be more easily written off as the product of the heat of the moment. Not so, a paper such as this.

Finally, I asked if he agreed with me that such escalation was inevitable. Starting with Krauthammer's axiom that Democrats think that the GOP is evil (not just wrong), I would go even further and say that the belief in the evil nature of Republicans is the essential glue which holds the Democratic Party together. They are made up of such disparate groups with such different agendas that all they share is a hatred of Republicans and a common belief in the slanderous accusations they make against the GOP (racist, sexist, homophobic, mean-spirited, hate-filled, etc.).

As their minority status continues, the lack of any unifying ideology leaves them with no other strategy than to increasingly ratchet up the nasty slanders until they get the voters' attention. Without a strategy, all that is left is tactics. And slander is first page of their play book. Although the slanders generally hurt them at the ballot box more than help, they do serve to motivate the activists and aid fund-raising. It seems inevitable to me that they will choose to continue to double down on their bets and follow the same course until they are left in a shambles.